2010 September❮❮prevnext❯❯

--via JZ

---

http://www.slate.com/id/2265067/ - the more I know about Max Headroom the more I like.

---

Dig the idea of built-in HDR on the iPhone camera. Wonder when/if Canon Powershots will have that (oh, duh, need to check out CHDK firmware replacement, maybe I can get it already)

---

I like how Netflix is the whore of streaming now. I can watch on laptop, Wii, PS3, Xbox 360.. yet Apple TV is still tempting.

---

Apple Store is now themed with a "fingerprint rainbow" as title backdrops. Like that they're embracing how smudge-y these things get.

---

You can't spell "success" without "u"! But in fact, I can't really spell "success" all that well, all those weird "s"s and soft "c"s...

Notherners		Southerners
cold		fiery
sober		voluptuary
laborious		indolent
independent		steady
jealous of their own liberties, and just to those of others		zealous for their own liberties, but trampling on those of others
interested		generous
chicaning		candid
supersitious and hypocritical in their religion		without attachment or pretensions to any religion but that of the heart

--via "One-Night Stands with American History", Shenkman + Reiger

---

If you can't make fun of yourself, then you are terrible at making fun of people.

---

Started riding my bike to Alewife. Besides saving a bit of time it's just fun and kinetic.

---

To quote a friend, "Another oil rig explosion in the Gulf? Yeesh."

---

Startlingly chatty Red Line conductor giving a play-by-play of the trains blocking our entry into Alewife...

---

--"Dancing at the Movies" (against Footloose) via felisdemens - thought MELM+MELAS might dig it...

---

"#lessonlearned Never volunteer for an experimental drug without learning what the experiment is."
--http://twitter.com/FakeScience

---

I wonder if any phone lets you record various "conference codes" to pick from and playback, for conference calls and automated menus etc...

---

http://flavorwire.com/95206/john-waters-10-best-pieces-of-advice-for-functional-freaks - I still find John Waters weirdly a little hot.

iPhone 4 photo of a ladybug on Amber's car. Fullsize original here. I laid on the "digital zoom" a bit too much, but still pretty impressive for a cellphone camera!

---

At the Peabody Essex Museum...

---

"Punch bug green! [light tap]" "What are you, twelve?" "...Times three!"

---

It is going into the Library of Congress, you know.

--Interesting refutation of some widely held beliefs that anime characters aren't "white" -- I'm a crappy artist and tend to think in icons, so I'm impressed by any kind of ability to generalize facial structure in a meaningful way. (Though it makes me wonder... do northeast Asians look more like *western* animated characters, too, by nature of a flatter facial structure?)

---

My hard nose, glass jaw, and soft heart.

---

If that One World Gov't the rightwingers are uptight about would mean no region-locked DVDs and games, I say- BRING IT ON! UN Uber Alles!

---

Apple synching kind of sucks. iTunes: some things live on iPhone, some things live on iPad. Leave the apps the hell alone.

---

---

2019 UPDATE:


I'm knocked over by how much great music I can run into still. I really thank MP3 players for revolutionizing my relationship with it, and how I can buy songs piecemeal and then give 'em a few months to burn into my brain before they get thrown into the general mix. (I'm also knocked over by how I can find nearly all of them on Youtube...)

Anyway, here are the 3,4, and 5 star songs I added to my collection over the past three months.

Random Modernish Urbanish Pop - I just dig the sound and swagger.

• TiK ToK (Ke$ha)
• Pretty Girls [Explicit] (Wale)
• Don't Stop The Music (Rihanna)
• He Said She Said (Ashley Tisdale)
• Get The Party Started (P!nk)
• Piece Of Me (Friscia and Lamboy Radio Edit) (Britney Spears)

NPR had a piece on the Carolina Chocolate Drops, and they covered "Hit 'Em Up Style", which turns out to be a good song in its own right.

• Hit 'Em Up Style (Carolina Chocolate Drops)
• Hit 'Em Up Style (Oops!) (Blu Cantrell) -- I heard the singer isn't too crazy about the central theme of the song, but hey.

I read a book "100 Best Beatles Song", and that introduced me to or reminded me of a few songs

• Hey Bulldog (Bill Deal) -- I could't find the original of this obscure "Yellow Submarine" track, but the Bill Deal cover is pretty rockin'.
• I Saw Her Standing There (Beatles)

Last season's mix was really where I imported a lot of song from Amber's collection, but her music still has new finds for me...

• The Denial Twist (Album Version) (The White Stripes) -- Incidentally, this is the only song this season I gave 5 Stars this season
• Icky Thump (Album Version) (The White Stripes)
• Sea Of Love (Cat Power) -- So very sweet
• Think I'm In Love (Beck) -- but it makes me kind of nervous to say so.
• Innocence (Bjork) -- there's something subtley Atari-ish about this that I dig.
• Umbrella (Marie Digby)

Q-Unit's Greatest Hits is 50 Cent crossed with Queen... kind of amazing stuff. I love the back cover art with 50 Cent sporting a Freddy Mercury mustache.

• Crazy Little Pimp Called Love (Q-Unit) -- originally I heard this in this Penny Arcade inking Boba Fett video
• Candy Bottom Girls (Q-Unit) -- I had to learn "Fat Bottomed Girls" so I could sing it with Tufts' sQ!, but I think I like this version a bit better.
• Disco Language (Q-Unit)
• If I Cant Be A Champion (Q-Unit)
• This Is How We Bite The Dust (Q-Unit)
• Under Pressure All The Time (Q-Unit)
• We Will Rock You In Da Club (Q-Unit)

In high school I was "Big Jule" in our production of Guys and Dolls, so I still have a soft spot for the music from it-- this is from the 1990s revival I saw in NYC with my mom, I think it had Nathan Lane in it.

• Guys and Dolls
• Fugue for Tinhorns
• The Oldest Established
• Luck Be a Lady
• Sue Me
• Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat

Random 90s "Alternative"

• Breakfast At Tiffany's (Deep Blue Something) -- this song still makes me want to watch the movie.
• Sex And Candy (Marcy Playground) -- I came for the "I smell sex and..." and stayed for the "like double cherry pie" -- is that even a thing?
• Push (Matchbox Twenty)

Tuba-memory music...

• Just a Closer Walk With Thee (Canadian Brass) -- their signature piece, I remember seeing them a few times with my mom.
• Mozart: Rondo alla Turka from Piano Sonata No.11, K.331 (Empire Brass) - I played this in a few bands. I love how much harder the trumpets had to work than I did.
• Rondo Alla Turca (Hooked On Classics) -- not sure why I decided to go for this one but it's kind of fun.

Songs from the Weird Al...

• Lola (The Kinks) -- Al's was "Yoda". Also kind of a rediscovery from Amber's
• Sharp Dressed Man (Remastered) (ZZ Top) - I think he through this one into a "Polka Party"

Songs from "Shake Burger and Fries" -- McDonalds had some promotional tapes once in the 80s, mixtapes of songs from the 60s-- I've tried in vain to track down a playlist, but I remember some of the songs...

• The Wanderer (Dion & The Belmonts) -- I remember doing this as a lipsynch at church camp. (I had the sax solo) Not the most appropriate song, in retrospect.
• Runaround Sue (Dion)
• Under The Boardwalk (The Drifters) -- I remember Veronika say how an English teacher tried to say that this song was about bugs - I guess he was mixing up "boardwalk" and "floorboards".
• Rhythm Of The Rain (The Cascades)

Songs off of youtube videos...

• Transformer Breakdance (ft. Soundwave and Lazer) (Lazer) -- liked this one for years, the breakdancing is great.
• gimmebackmason (Swede Mason) -- oh, will Mel Gibson flying into a frothy rage ever grow old? Um, probably.
• Birds And The Bees (Sliptone) -- (actually the video I posted was Den Meyer's Annual Report which cuts out quite a bit.

I've been seeing some IMAX at Jordan's furniture lately, and they have a thing for that 90s-era swing revival stuff...

• The Ding Dong Daddy of the D Car Line (Cherry Poppin Daddies)
• Here Comes the Snake (Cherry Poppin' Daddies) -- I've always been a bit amused by the lack of subtlety in this song
• When I change your mind (Cherry Poppin' Daddies)
• Zoot Suit Riot (Cherry Poppin' Daddies)

Random finds:

• Good Enough (Remastered Album Version) (Bonnie Raitt) - a suggestion from a therapist I see every once in a while.
• Dance Across The Floor (Jimmy Bo Horne) - Lileks wrote "How we hated disco. We wore skinny ties and were Mods! But allow me to present the brief for the opposition."
• Fresno Drum Cadence (Fresno State Bulldog Marching Band) -- I still long to hear the funk-laden of Euclid High School Marching Band circa 1990 or so... (link not quite what I have on my iPhone)
• The Girl From Ipanema (Stan Getz) -- when I am elected king of the world, EVERY elevator will play this song, by kingly mandate.
• At Last (Etta James) -- not sure where I heard this, but probably a soundtrack.
• Son Of A Preacher Man (The Gaylettes) -- didn't realize "Preacher Man" had so many old covers. This one is good, though I dislike how they change the slant-rhyming "learning from each other's knowin'" to "learning from each other's knowledge"
• Fever (Little Willie John) - I was reading about this earlier version of a song I love from the Peggy Lee cover.
• Sand In My Shoes (Dido) -- I think this song used to be in my collection, not sure what happened to it-- anyway, it's great and happy and sad.

---

September Blender of Love is here!

---

Paul Robertson made the art for a new Scott Pilgrim game on Xbox Live and PSN... gotta check that out!

---

Sad that synths/sequencers never have "marching band" drumkits: Tri-toms, tuned bass drums, etc... don't band nerds dig this stuff too? --Star Wars poster -- see ones for all 3 of the Original Trilogy... (via)

---

http://www.slate.com/id/2266404/ - Hey Republicans, how about some support for Petraeus? No? Moral and intellectual cowards.

---

Kirk's Rule of Thumb for Online Music Shopping: in choosing between different versions of the same song, go for the shortest. It's more concentrated, the core ideas of the piece presented in a smaller package.

---

The light of dawn in her room was as pale as skimmed milk.

Tempus II from Philip Heron on Vimeo.

---

Of course they have ponies in Heaven, kid. What do you think the angels eat? Ha ha. Kidding. Angels eat other angels.

---

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/mens-fashion/pants-size-chart-090710 - JEEZ I thought pants' waists being, you know, real units of measure saved men from "dress size deflation" type games!

---

CSS design wonks, take your "padding-bottom: 32767px" and stuff it up your "table layouts suck!"-ass.

---

Walking to Inman for a farewell to a friend/gamer moving to Atlanta. Sad to realize 1998-2006ish was goldenage of my gaming get togethers.
--Rex is a right jerk sometimes, but he can also be super cute... photo by our friend Kjersten...

---

"I look so cute in my new hoodie!"
"You kind of look like Harry Potter"
"I look like 'Somewhat Harrier Potter'"

---

retroremakes says "The design doc for Marble Madness is well worth a read btw, if you haven't already:" http://www.atarigames.com/page5/files/page5_5.pdf (warning kind of a big PDF file)

---

Look, I really don't want to wax philosophic, but I will say that if you're alive, you got to flap your arms and legs, you got to jump around a lot, you got to make a lot of noise, because life is the very opposite of death. And therefore, as I see it, if you're quiet, you're not living. You've got to be noisy, or at least your thoughts should be noisy and colorful and lively.

---

You can live to be a hundred if you give up all the things that make you want to live to be a hundred.

---

Hey LazyWeb, is there any way to use a laptop as an external monitor for a second laptop? Like "extend my desktop" onto whole 'nother PC...

---

Living each day as if it were my last makes me ask: WTF? I have to go to work on my LAST DAY EVER?!

--via gifanime --via gifanime
--via gifanime

---

The food chain according to 3-year-old Toph: Squirrels eat racoons, racoons eat busses, and busses don't want to eat.

This weekend Amber and I joined good ol "what happened to my sidebar" Dylan and a crew of people up at his family's cabins on Lake George, NY...

---

---

http://www.thesandwichfair.com/ -Amber wants to go to the 3-day "Sandwich Fair" I was psyched, but it turns out Sandwich is a place name :-( So, one thing Lake George has is nature!

---

Things I learned about this weekend: "Nose Grease", a convenient lubricant at hand for carpenters and people with chapped lips and what not.

---

Things I learned about this weekend: I observed again how a star-filled, low-light-pollution sky really looks like a sky dome arched above.

---

Things I learned about this weekend: if there's no such thing as a "Jacksi-One" (Pepsi One and Jack) maybe there oughta be. (Why no love for Pepsi products as mixers in general?)

---

http://is.gd/fbWGN This spoof video and that Chappelle Show w/ Wayne Brady had that "shushing while strangling" thing- where's that from?

---

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/13/charlie-brooker-google-instant -- Google's War on our attention spans.

---

Technically, my job wouldn't be impossible without jQuery and Firebug, but man, it's pretty close!

---

If I ever saw an amputee being hanged, I would just start yelling out letters.

---

...at Jabba the Hutt's palace with Oola the slave girl, who, it turns out, has a rather long 'jabba' where her 'hutt' should be...

---

Maybe I should replace the Larry-the-Cable-Guy's "Git-R-Done" with Tim Gunn's "Make It Work" for describing crunchtime work methodology.

---

How to spot a geek: have them make a list of scary words and see if they include "non-Euclidian."

---

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsmaker/college-safety-rankings/ --yeesh, my alma mater Tufts "Most Dangerous College"? Harvard #3, MIT #14. One final bit of Lake George-ism -- I've always liked this poster, an old party invitation, though I'm not sure of the year or of all of the references, but here's an attempt at transcribing it... (Merri-Vue must've been the name of one of the other cabins.)

Merri - Vue extends to you - a hesitant invitation to come on up and grab a cup of gin, or hooch libation ....... we've stripped the joint, so there's no point to limit jubilation .... besides our thirst, Anthea durst have a birthday celebration ..... bring bob along (we may be wrong) it's quite an education, to see him drink and slowly sink in quiet stupification . ..... our john's inside, we say with pride no need for constipation! ........... so tell ivân to use the can*, fur coats are his temptation ......... black tie and tails, long dresses, veils, just use the imagination .......... the date is Sun*, we'll go to Mon . to miss. hyatt's consternation ......... come one; come all to the merry brawl the seasons wind-up celebration ...... 5:00 PM

---

"Hi! I'm Princess Laidup! Note that I'm wearing less clothes in this movie than before! That's because my Figure's improved! Unfortunately my acting HASN'T!" --Leia from MAD's parody of Return of the Jedi... I remember being kind of fascinated by this drawing back in 1983 or so

You know in movies, like 2012 or whatever, when the guy jumps out of the collapsing building JUST in time, or barely outruns the fireball, or otherwise avoids certain doom by inches? This is a video of all that in real life. Not for the faint of heart!

(2019 Not the original 9:30 video but probably close)

---

When your only tool is a stapler, every problem looks like it needs to be attached to another problem.

--There's been a lot of news about Super Mario's 25th Birthday -- this is one of my favorite bits. Reminds me a lot of Myron Krueger's early Artifical Reality studies.

Life is not land we own.
O no, it is only lent.
In the end we are left alone
When the last light is spent.
So live that you may say,
Lord, I have no regret.
Thank you for these sunny days
And for the last sunset.

(One of the other characters disparages it a bit.) It reminds me a bit of Avatar's "all energy is only borrowed, and one day you have to give it back."

---

I'd like to see an honest Cocoa Puffs commercial where the announcer says "It's adjacent to this complete breakfast!"

---

CSS geekery... now I think any complex layout that depends heavily on float:left is doomed to be unportable and fragile, a hothouse flower.

--I like how it's all Star Wars but not.

---

Found on Boylston St. Never seen a stripe-y clip like this before! --Wired's coverage of the upcoming Facebook movie mentions

And nobody in the movie brings up that insane-looking Facebook Illuminati symbol, which the flesh-and-blood Zuckerberg custom-stitched into the inside of his hoodie

I was more intrigued when I thought I had read it was stitched into the inside of the hood part... Anyway, here's the story behind it, askew-embedded-Star-of-David of all.

I think this is a little interesting but overplayed. (It makes me think about this squiggly line logo Nokia used as a placeholder when it first acquired Enpocket... I have thought on a hoodie, though not on the inside.)

---

DADT blocked again. Because America is safer when our Soldiers are as closeted as our Senators.

---

Autumn sun may come in smaller portions but it doesn't have any of the sticky aftertaste summer's does.

---

http://www.slate.com/id/2267899/ - love this Slate/NPR translation of Fed speak into plain English - great use of simple DHTML technology!

--I'm bummed this didn't come out as pretty as Amber. Still I loved the apple appeal.

---

The old jingle "Oh My Eskimo Pie". Funny name. Mildly racist? What's Eskimo Glass of Water, an ice cube? Eskimo Turkey- a Frozen Turkey?

---

The noisiness of a Harley, rooted in engine inefficiency, makes it the exact parallel to the peacock's tail for burly bikers (though less attractive to normal humans.)

---

Obama's "We can absorb a terrorist attack." is controversial?? He shoulda said "if they hit us again we're hosed"?? Hint: "We'll do everything we can to prevent it" immediately follows.

---

http://beautifulpixels.com/iphone/10-simple-iphone-backgrounds/ - blueprints one is so clever
--from Myron Krueger's "Artificial Reality 2", a suit to help computers better figure out what position the human was in... I just love this vision of high tech bending into the harlequin...
--more from Myron Krueger. This stuff is commonplace now (funny how both PS3 and Xbox 360 have just recently introduced stuff that seems to have deep roots in this stuff) but when I realize he was doing some of this with hardware that's as old as I am, it's pretty humbling. (I wrote a bit more on him 4 years ago

---

So the google search results page updates live now. Type 'awesomeee' and then watch it get progressively more retarded with each 'e' you add

---

Life is a re-gift

---

"We don't have to go Trader Joes"
"YES WE DO!"
"Oh right you need your soda!"
"YEAH YEAH!"
"You have a problem..."
"I know- OUTTA SODA!"

---

We felt a little bad about cutting in front of a dozen odd people by using the Chiopotle app to order salads on the drive there, but got over it.

---

After seeing some guy on a bike on an empty baseball diamond scoop up a football, I wondered if there's "bicycle polo" out there- why yes there is!

---

Just found out the secret to hooking up my old (240p??) N64 and new 1080p projector - ye olde "TVBOX", VGA out - 4player Dr Mario ahoy!

---

Twenty-two astronauts were born in Ohio. What is it about your state that makes people want to flee the Earth?

--Judging by other ads out there I guess the pitch is supposed to be "Windows 7 Phones are faster to get to your information" (by putting more dynamic stuff on the front screen) but the lesson here seems to be "don't use your phone so damn much and miss out on life around you" which is an even better point. So A for execution, D- for getting the message across.

---

---

http://webdesign.about.com/u/ua/css/css_annoyances.htm - finding more voices saying tables aren't the enemy for web design.

---

http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2009/02/17/wanted-layout-system/ - when hardcore CSS folk point out why CSS layout needs tables.

---

It's CSS, not cascading LAYOUT sheets eh? Div and Table layout: easy in simple cases, but colspan's complexity scales better than float's.

---

http://www.killersites.com/blog/2006/css-3-column-layout/ - man, 4 years ago, same issue. Is "3 column CSS layout" still tough? If so, yeesh.

---

I guess one anti-table idea is "wouldn't it be swell if all layout was externalized, hot-swappable?" Well, kinda- that can be hard to trace.

---

--by the great paul robertson

---

Odd how there's no plural for the word 'revenge' itself.

---

Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else.

---

there is some shit I will not eat

---

Heh, aw these awful and bitter quotes! Part of what I get from reading "Things I've Learned from Women Who've Dumped Me"

---

So the universe is not quite as you thought it was.
You'd better rearrange your beliefs, then.
Because you certainly can't rearrange the universe.

an excerpt of the colors of the web
Basically looking into the top 100 brands -
dig this kind of analysis so much!

---

http://erkie.github.com/ - oh so brilliant -- an Asteroids fighter on any page, blasting away page elements...
--Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions, from Wikipedia's page on List of Emotions. Started wondering about this when I read about Graham Mann's attempts to make programs that have emotion.

---

http://www.slate.com/id/2267815 - Wrestler Mick Foley <3s Tori Amos. (like http://music.ign.com/articles/691/691277p1.html - DMC <3s Sarah McLaughlin...)

---

http://www.slate.com/id/2268833/ - "America fights while China does business"

---

Seems like anti-<table> folk aspire to moving all layout to .css files (not HTML). But the <div>s need css hacks and/or awkward html anyway!

---

http://is.gd/fCoWX - the country has gone nuts. AT+T can claim that it, a company, has a Right to Privacy? For reals? Sweet jimminy.

---

http://js1k.com/home - 1K Javascript is kinda amazing!

---

"Trickle down economics" is hereby renamed "homeopathic wealth distribution".

---

http://www.enlightennext.org/magazine/j44/lachman.asp - what to do when it's 2013 and the world's still here...

---

Grr. I wonder if Apple is deliberately not including any photo album management on the iPhone itself to be released later...

---

http://www.homedics.com/products/ceramic-tile-digital-scale.html - Amber and I bought this ceramic tile scale. Odd blend of stone and technology, like William Gibson's Idoru "sandbenders"

2010 September❮❮prevnext❯❯